The invention relates to a procedure that has the object of obtaining granulated products from a liquid emulsion that is submitted to a process of disintegration into droplets, in order to introduce these droplets into a liquid configuring device in which they solidify, thus obtaining the corresponding grains.
It is also the object of the invention to provide a device for putting into practice the aforementioned procedure, the device having means for generating pressure pulses in the liquid to be configured, means by which droplets are obtained with a certain diameter and form, and also a receptor means for the reception of the droplets, by which said droplets are introduced into the configurating liquid.
The principal application of the method and device is found in the food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, with the object of obtaining granulated products such as black or red granulated caviar substitute, granulated meat, chemical, pharmaceutical products, berry substitutes and others.
Methods are known for obtaining granules that are similar to food products such as caviar of sturgeon. A method exists based on the introduction of a viscous or liquid emulsion to be configured into a liquid mass as configuring component, usually hot oil, in such a way that, due to the effect of the temperature, gelling or coagulation of the emulsion to configure occurs, thus producing some granules of a certain consistency. To do this it is necessary to allow the emulsion, prepared and destined to be configured in granular form, to fall dropwise into the mass of the configuring liquid, in such a way that on coming into contact with the liquid coagulation occurs and therefore granules are obtained.
Said type of method has the drawback that the viscous or liquid emulsion to configure, on being in liquid state, does not have enough consistency to maintain its form. Therefore, when the drops fall on the surface of the configuring liquid they are deformed and even get to break with the corresponding loss of form, and so on gelling or coagulating inside the mass of configuring liquid well formed granules are not obtained.
Another drawback consists in the fact that it is very complicated to obtain liquid drops in a continuous fashion with the same diameter and at a rhythm of production sufficiently high to allow industrial exploitation.
In the patent of invention 9700772 a procedure is described for obtained a granulated product whose characteristics imitate the caviar of sturgeon. The procedure is based on the ingredients that are going to form the final product, in the correct proportion and in the way of carrying out the preparation, including equally the phase of final formation of granules by mixing the ingredients is submitted to some pulses that make the liquid mass divide into droplets. These droplets are then straight away introduced into the configuring medium. In said procedure neither way in which the pulses are effected on the liquid mass of the component to be configured nor the media used are specified.
The procedure that is advocated allows the aforementioned problems to be solved. The procedure is based on the disintegration into droplets of the liquid to be configured, to which end said liquid is submitted to the action of periodic pulses, that are symmetric to the axis of the flowing jet of liquid to be configured, in order to avoid deformation of the droplets themselves and, as a consequence, a controlled disintegration is achieved.
The droplets obtained in the disintegration are introduced into the mass of liquid to be configured, with the peculiarity that this introduction is carried out simultaneously with the supply of a flow of configuring liquid, with the speeds of both liquid components being matched, to avoid the droplets of the liquid to be configured from colliding with the surface of the configuring liquid.
In said procedure there is a synchronised control between the stream of periodic pulses that exercise pressure on the jet of liquid to configure, and the speed with which the droplets are introduced into the configuring liquid.
Therefore, by means of the procedure of the invention what is done, in a controlled fashion, is the disintegration of droplets of the liquid jet to configure, along with a visual control synchronised with the speed of introduction of said droplets into the configuring liquid. All this is carried out with a view to avoiding deformations of the repeated droplets and to obtaining granules with uniform morphological characteristics, in accordance with the type of granule that is desired.
The device for putting into practice said procedure includes a chamber which supplies the liquid to configure, and in whose chamber an elastic membrane has been placed which is made to vibrate according to electrical signals with a certain frequency and form. The mechanical pulses of vibrations of the membrane generate pressure pulses in the liquid to configure, all this in order to achieve the disintegration of the liquid jet into droplets, with a control of the sequence of pulses in order to obtain droplets with a determined diameter and form.
The device also includes stroboscopic means for controlling the process of disintegration of the jet of liquid to be configured, a means of control that would have a validation of light impulses synchronised with the sequence of pulses from the elastic membrane.
The device also have a receiver element for the droplets obtained by the method described above, a receiver that, having the form of two convergent cascades, not only receives liquid drops to be configured, but also a flow of configuring liquid, in such a way that the form of this receiver element allows the speeds of the configuring liquid and the liquid to be configured to be matched, avoiding collision of the drops against the configuring liquid and, as a consequence, deformation is prevented.
The introduction of liquid drops to be configured in the mass of configuring liquid is carried out on a column containing this latter component, in such a way that the end of the receiver element by which the drops are fed along with a flow of the configuring liquid, is slightly submerged in the configuring liquid contained in the column, assuring a gradual introduction of the droplets into the column.